venit

So high up. On the one occasion when he had dared open a window in the office - the air condition had not been conditioning anything that day - the glass panels below him had pulled his eyes to the ground. More like a floor than a wall, the side of the building had played jokerish tricks with the directions inside his head. It had suddenly clicked for him why traders traditionally leapt out of buildings whenever the markets dived: they weren't just taking advantage of the macabre convenience; every one of them secretly wanted to do it all the time.

Altitude and not cleanliness signifies closeness to God. Greater prestige, greater hubris: touch the sky. Now Chris was as close as he was ever likely to get, sitting in the low penthouse of the Delft building, which stood proud among the glassy denizens of the square mile of City. The inspirational paintings pattered demurely over the expanse of his office had been chosen by the chosen few who were still his superiors, and it was wisest not to take them down. Their blue hummed a beat note with the blues of the sky; the leather chairs and walnut occasionals echoed the earth far away.

Chris stared out at the clouds. The phone rang. He didn't answer it. The phone stopped ringing. He frowned in thought about what next. Then he turned off his mobile. It didn't get a chance to ring.

In the lower reaches of the building jobs were coloured and tagged by their function rather than their rank, and floors were numbered separately only for convenience. After ten years squeezing up and down between those laminae Chris was able to struggle up to twelve storeys below the position he occupied now. Four years of colourless middle-management had thence propelled him here, to vocations of the metallic tints: bronze, silver, and the gold that would never be his. But how much more frustrated he, and everyone else, had been down in that purgatory! The corporate rite of passage, purifying oneself into larger and larger cubicles, way stations on whose platforms one planned the rest of the journey sideways and, one hoped, eventually upwards. Once one reached the private rooms then the eternal battle was joined, where availability and likelihood of office fought perceived respectability among the finely stratified upper reaches of the company. Who would depart next for the managerial hereafter? To what sphere would they be projected? In retrospect it was no wonder that the whole of Chris's sub-department had been a long, shivering streak of anxiety and tension, humming high like a taught, plucked string.

Pitching higher than most, Chris found himself on the forty-fourth floor: a partner. Watching him land after the handshake, gasping and relieved, on his permanent perch, Chris invoked a mixture of envy and vicarious fear in Jeremy. After shadowing him through school (made men by Jesuits) and a politics-ish degree (at separate universities - Jeremy with his LSE BSc and Chris with an Oxford MA) Jeremy took the news with good, if wishful, grace. He felt relieved that he hadn't been promoted instead of Chris to what Jeremy felt to be above his own rightful place or expertise. But: "Don't be stupid," Chris had once said to him. "You could do what I'm doing." He didn't know himself whether it was truth or conciliation.

"You reckon, Chris. But you know what I'm like." In Chris' mind Jeremy inhaled half of his cigarette, and gesticulated as he breathed out. The smoke swirled with his hands. "Single-minded. Head down and I can't see ver bigger picture."

"You don't reckon that's what they want?"

"Nah, not really. Vey probably had one too many partners burn out by doing that. Vey need support, up there. I mean, everyone needs it, which is why I'm chasing after Jess in marketing and ayarbour a race-memory desire to fuck my secretary senseless. But up vur-" (cigarette stabbing motion) "-you need it more van anyone else.... How is she, by the way? You seener since ver weekend? I mean, I know it's only Tuesday, but ayafta ask."

Chris remembered all this as he looked at the wall opposite. Jeremy's vocal quirks that no amount of Fatherly schooling had been able to batter out of him. The grin Chris wore as he spent thirty seconds, perhaps a minute, not answering Jeremy's question. It had all happened a long time ago, for six months. Longer than the years behind and the acquired expertise: neglected depth and wasted breadth, in balance with a broken heart.

Into his reverie passed his assistant, coughing politely through the visions of Jeremy's endless cigarette consumption, and spoke to Chris about a contract, some contract, shipping to the Hoek next month. He displayed a deference to Chris that he did not feel he deserved. Conquering kings their titles take/ from the foes they captive make/ - and Chris was forced to recognise in his PA a man that, only a year ago, had practically been his peer: recognise him and silently vomit guilt. Chris felt no longer worthy of his crown. His ego limped, like a cripple without her prop. One and one made two, and Chris felt like a half.

He glanced at his new toy by the south windows and then at the clock. What a view. What a view he would have.